Dragon Medical One empowers Gloucestershire Hospitals’ clinical staff
Gloucestershire Hospitals’ clinicians use Dragon Medical One to update clinical records and capture patient letters faster using just their voice.
Efficient and convenient way to complete clinical documentation
According to Dr Alex Owen, Dragon Medical One helps to create excellent documentation and make it available to all relevant people—including the patient, their GP, and the hospital’s records. It also helps in capturing patient details, straight after consultations. Read the story of his experience with Dragon Medical One.
Challenge
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust wanted a more modern approach to dictation in its dermatology team to empower its clinicians to tackle clinical documentation more efficiently.
Solution
Using Dragon Medical One, Gloucestershire Hospitals’ clinicians can dictate quickly and easily patient letters and clinical notes, helping them create higher quality documentation faster.
Results
With the ability to create higher-quality patient letters with less effort, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has boosted job satisfaction for its clinicians and delivers a better quality of care for its patients.
Background
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is renowned for its highly specialised dermatology department, which NHS teams across the country rely on as a key centre for skin cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Dr Alex Owen, a specialist in dermatology at Gloucestershire Hospitals, sees approximately 200 patients every month. All these consultations create a significant amount of documentation work, from writing patient letters to maintaining accurate clinical records.
Previously, Dr Owen and the other dermatologists would dictate clinical notes and follow-up letters using old-fashioned magnetic tape recorders. A secretary would then transcribe the recording and send it back to the original clinician for sign off; a lengthy process that required a lot of additional administrative effort. So, the team started looking for a more efficient and convenient way to complete their documentation tasks.
The impact of Dragon Medical One at Gloucestershire Hospitals
"Dragon Medical One has ultimately improved job satisfaction for a lot of our clinicians. We can see the quality of the letters we’re sending out, and we can feel confident we’re having good consultations."
— Dr Alex Owen,
Dermatology Specialist, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Dragon Medical One empowers Gloucestershire Hospitals’ dermatology team
Gloucestershire Hospitals initially tested Nuance’s clinical documentation companion, Dragon Medical One, in a small pilot group. But after early successes, the Trust quickly expanded to its entire dermatology department.
“Almost immediately, we found that Dragon Medical One met a lot of our needs. Everyone in the department saw its benefits,” says Dr Owen. “It’s a massive improvement on our previous approach, and VoicePower has been incredibly supportive throughout the process—there’s no problem its team hasn’t been able to fix.
Gloucestershire Hospitals’ clinicians use Dragon Medical One to update clinical records and dictate patient letters using just their voice. And with features like AutoText—a simple command that automatically populates clinical letters with customised content—they can work far more efficiently.
High-quality documentation leads to high-quality care
Producing higher quality documentation faster is helping the trust provide higher quality care to its patients. The dermatology department is able to record patient symptoms more accurately and ensure it keeps complete patient records for future appointments.
“Dragon Medical One helps us create excellent documentation and make it available to all relevant people—including the patient, their GP, and the hospital’s records,” says Dr Owen. “It also helps us capture patient details as they’re fresh in our minds, straight after consultations.”
Dragon Medical One’s value is even evident during multidisciplinary meetings —where many consultants come together to review patients’ cases.